Young Guns Boring To Some, But Golf Definitely On `Upward Curve'

There were Ernie Els, Loren Roberts and Colin Montgomerie dragging their way through the heat of suburban Pittsbugh in an 18-hole playoff for the U.S. Open title.

It should have been one of those defining moment in sports, especially since the Open is the last of the major golf tournaments that doesn't use that TV-rigged sudden-death playoff until an extra 18 holes are played.

It should have been defining-but it wasn't. Defining moments in golf for most TV viewers involve names like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino-not Els, Roberts or Montgomerie.

But those golden days are gone, replaced by a constant parade of lackluster personalities who can hit a golf ball a ton. Even when the occasional oddball like John Daly shows up, he is sometimes overwhelmed by his own larger-than-life celebrity.

Which leaves TV golf almost like one big sleeping pill.

"Says who?" retorts Jim Nantz, a former member of the famed University of Houston golf team and CBS' golf play-by-play man now that Pat Summerall left for Fox Broadcasting. "I would expect someone who doesn't play golf to make that statement."

Guilty as charged.

"That's what most of the sportwriters will bring up if (Greg) Norman, (Nick) Faldo and Daly aren't there, that it's not a very good venue," adds Gary McCord, CBS' outspoken on-course analyst. "Actually, you'll find very few times that the top money-winners will be fighting it out, especially in a major like the Open at Oakmont.

"It took guys who were so patient and extremely straight hitters. An Open usually calls for a very quiet individual who goes about his business to handle all this stuff. Fambloyance is very rare in an Open winner because of the trials and tribulations of an Open course. Then you accelerate it ten-fold at Oakmont. It takes a certain kind of guy to win that."

Besides, disputes Nantz, "golf is on an upward curve. It's growing in popularity. Maybe the ratings don't always reflect that (the U.S. World Cup match June 18 outrated the U.S. Open coverage on ABC that day), but the game is surging. It's not like we do NFL (ratings) numbers for golf. But golf at CBS has forever been a profitable property. It's one of the few properties we've had that's done nothing but make money every year.

"That argument got kicked around a lot when Nicklaus and Palmer were beginning to sag a little bit. People were saying all these guys on the regular Tour were the same, that there are no personalities in golf.

"I just don't buy that anymore. If you're not a golf fan, maybe the game itself seems boring to you. But there's more good players (than in the past). I'm not sure anyone out here is better than Jack Nicklaus or Ben Hogan in their prime. But there's a more quality depth. As a result, you have many fewer multiple winners. Players winning five or six tournaments a year just doesn't happen anymore."

Nantz sees golf on the uptick because it's crossing generational lines. "Everybody's getting into it now," he says. "Teenagers (are finding) it's really cool to be into golf. We know who's watching golf. It's easy for our advertisers to go in and get their target audience. And it's starting to spill over into younger demographics. The game has become pretty hip."

Just check out some of those slick beer commercials, where the guys are cruising through a golf course discussing Peter Frampton and the good old days.

"It's not the MTV sport of our generation, but it crosses all fields," says Nantz. "You've got guys like Eddie Van Halen dying to play in pro-ams every Wednesday on the PGA Tour. Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan can't get enough free time to play golf. Jim Courier and Pete Sampras go into a tennis tournament and the first thing they do is make sure their early-round matches don't conflict with their possible tee times.

"There's an awful lot of people who are swept away by the game of golf right now to misinterpret it as going through a boring stage or having lost a lot of its appeal since the glory days of Arnie and Jack."

"We're not on MTV yet," adds McCord, "but Generation X is watching again. I credit a large portion of that to guys like Jordan and Barkley and all these guys, who, while they're being interviewed, say they can't wait for it to end so they can go play golf. I never heard that when I was growing up. I never heard that the first 10 years I was on the Tour. But now all the different sports celebrities are talking about how they can't wait to get out to the golf course and maybe give a shot at the Senior Tour. Obviously, it helps us."

A far cry, adds McCord, to his teenage years growing up in California.

"It's no longer a geek sport," says McCord. "We used to just be geeks if we played this game. I remember in high school, you'd never admit you were on the golf team. It was like saying you were on the audio-visual team. Or that I worked in a library or was a member of the chess club. Now we have kind of a roguish elan out there with Tour players. It's kind of fun."